正文 目录 文库目录 文库收藏 中文百科 Wiki百科
居里夫人的故事|THE story of Madame Curie

第五章 人物|Chapter V People

属类: 双语小说 【分类】儿童读物 -[作者: 王丈卜] 阅读:[5208]
作者是王丈卜。这本书主要介绍居里夫人伟大的一生以及艰苦条件下取得成果的故事。2020年4月,列入《教育部基础教育课程教材发展中心 中小学生阅读指导目录(2020年版)》
字+字- 页+页- 字+字- 页+页-
1
-

玛妮雅回到了华沙。她一双灰色的大眼睛带着笑意审视着这个截然不同的世界,厚实的上嘴唇常常因为欢乐的微笑而颤动,不过脸上仍然挂着严肃的神情。同世界上大多数父亲一样,斯克沃多夫斯基先生也会想方设法让孩子们明白要靠自己的双手养活自己。他不再接受学生寄宿,一家人又重新回到了自己的小房子生活。尽管父亲还在努力赚钱维持房租、女佣和日常开销,但生活已经举步维艰,他们还要考虑到父亲将来只能靠微薄的教师退休金度日。这一点一直困扰着父亲。像世界上大多数父亲一样,他也想赚足够多的钱让家人生活富足。晚上坐在油灯旁,父亲也会深深地叹息。四双明媚的眼睛,或是长春花般浅蓝或是灰亮,都会抬起头来看着父亲,揣测他的想法;四个孩子异口同声抗议道:“爸爸别担心,我们年轻力壮,难道还养活不了自己吗?” 尽管斯克沃多夫斯基先生对孩子们的热忱感到欣慰,但他心里也不免犯嘀咕,自己这辈子没什么建树,不知道孩子们是否能成功。他天资聪慧,勤奋努力,但从生活中得到的物质回报却极少。孩子们会像他一样吗?这个身材矮小、体态臃肿、谢了顶的男人穿着他精心整理却依然破旧的黑外衣坐在灯下。这位父亲的一切都是一丝不苟、整洁利落的:他的字,他的思想,他的言语,甚至是他的行为。他也用同样细腻无微不至的爱抚养孩子们长大。带孩子们出门短游,父亲会提前制定好出行路线,带孩子们领略自然的美景,发现常人不易觉察的美好,大多数人未能发现美是因为无人提及。如果看到著名的古老建筑,父亲会讲述它的历史背景。在玛妮雅的眼中,父亲是完美的。她从未质疑过父亲那一丝不苟、精益求精的态度。她觉得父亲无所不知。事实上,父亲确实学识渊博。他用自己挣来的辛苦钱买了内容丰富的书籍,实时了解物理和化学界的新发现。他精通希腊语、拉丁文和五门当代语言,自己却觉得不足为奇。每周六晚上,父亲都会自己写诗并声情并茂地朗诵给孩子们听,让他们逐步接触到博大的文学世界。有时想给孩子们读些外国名著,比如《大卫·科波菲尔》,他会用波兰语朗读,尽管手中握着的是英文版本。

1
-

MANYA was back in Warsaw. Her big grey eyes looked out with a laugh in them at a changed world. Her firm upper lip often twitched with a merry smile, but her face was often serious. Like the fathers of most of the world, Mr. Sklodovski let his children know that they had their living to earn. He had given up taking students and the family again lived in a little house of their own. It was hard enough, while their father was still earning, to pay the rent, the daily girl and the house-keeping and they had to look forward to the time when he would have nothing but a teacher’s small pension to live on. That worried him. Like the fathers of most of the world, he had hoped to make enough money to provide for his family. Sitting by the lamp in the evening, he would sigh deeply. Four pair of happy eyes, between periwinkle-blue and grey, would look up at him and guess his thought; his four children would all protest together: “Don’t worry, Father, aren’t we all young and strong and able to earn for ourselves?” Mr. Sklodovski must have wondered, as he smiled at their eagerness, whether they would succeed in life as he had not done. He had worked hard and been very gifted and yet had won very little reward in money from life. Would his children be like him? The baldheaded, short, fat, little man sat under the lamp in his dark, meticulously brushed, shabby coat. Everything about him was precise and neat: his handwriting, his thoughts, his expressions, even his actions. He had brought up his children with the same exquisite, neat care. When he took them on excursions he made out the itinerary beforehand, pointed out the beauties of the landscape to them, realising, perhaps, what few people know, that most people miss seeing beauty because nobody mentions it. If they came to an old or famous building, he would tell them its history. Manya saw no faults in her father. It never occurred to her to mock his precise little ways. She thought of him as a fount of universal knowledge. And, indeed, he knew many things. He kept up with the new discoveries in physics and chemistry by buying learned pamphlets with his hard-earned savings. He knew, without a thought of his own cleverness, Greek and Latin and five modern languages. He wrote verse and read aloud beautifully to his children every Saturday evening so that they grew to know great literature. When he wanted to read to them some foreign book, David Copperfield, for example, he read it in Polish though the copy in his hand was English.

2
-

“家里没什么新变化,”玛妮雅在给朋友的信中写道,“植被真是生长得愈发茂盛!杜鹃开花了,朗斯特睡在毯子上!我把裙子染了,家里的女佣古茜娅正在竭力洗干净它。她已经把布朗尼娅的弄好了,很成功。我既没时间又没钱。有人介绍我们去给一位女士上课;但当布朗尼娅告诉她一小时一先令时,她夺门而出,好像房子着了火。”

2
-

“There’s nothing new at home,” wrote Manya to a friend. “The plants are quite well, thank you! The azaleas are in flower and Lancet is asleep on the rug! I have had my dress dyed and Gucia, the daily maid, is altering it. She’s just done Bronia’s, which is a success. I have little time and still less money. A lady who was recommended to us for lessons came; but when Bronia told her they would cost her a shilling an hour, she fled as if the house were on fire.”

3
-

然而,不管挣得多不多,玛妮雅都要做家教。那个年代,女孩能做的工作真是少之又少。但她此前从未想过,“我能招多少学生?能挣多少钱?”如果这样想,那就不是玛妮雅了!她有自己的梦想——不像女孩憧憬结婚,不像男孩渴望驾驶。她的梦想是波兰。她,玛妮雅·斯克沃多夫斯卡,必须拯救波兰。仅凭十六岁的青春年华,凭着父亲、学校和书本灌输到她脑袋里的那点东西,如何才能做到呢?玛妮雅知道还有人也怀揣着拯救波兰的梦想,谋划着炸死沙皇。还有人梦想着上帝能回应他们对波兰的祈祷。尽管玛妮雅为帮助一位革命党人而把护照借给了他,她却从没想过上述这些方法。她觉得最务实的方法就是最好的:做好眼前事;向俄国政府竭尽全力愚化的波兰人民传授知识;不断教学、教学、再教学,直到让华沙成为伟大思想的核心摇篮,直到让波兰强大到能引领欧洲。

3
-

Yet, paid badly or not, Manya had to teach. Nothing else was open to girls in those days. But she didn’t think: “How many pupils can I get? What can I earn?” That wasn’t Manya! She had her dreams—not the girl dream of getting married, nor the boy dream of engine driving. Her dream was Poland. She, Manya Sklodovska, must help Poland. How could she do that with her sixteen years and the stuff her father and her school and books had put into her head? There were others who dreamed for Poland, Manya knew, and plotted to throw bombs at the Czar. There were those who dreamed that God would answer their prayers for Poland. But, though Manya lent her passport to a revolutionary, she dreamed neither of those dreams. She believed that the most practical dream is the best: do the thing that is just in front of you; teach the Poles whom the Russian government was doing its best to keep ignorant; teach and teach and teach till Warsaw should become a great centre for the things of the mind, till Poland should lead Europe by being best.

4
-

英法两国目前正在盛行一股新思潮。一位年长玛妮雅十岁的朋友得到了风声,创办了一个秘密社团,名为“双翼学社”,专门研究新思想。玛妮雅、布朗尼娅和海拉都加入了社团。小团体每次在不同的成员家里聚集学习,不是学什么“旁门左道”或稀奇古怪的东西,就是学习解剖、生物和自然历史。然而,突然的敲门声和壁板里老鼠的响动,都会让大家打个激灵。如果警察逮住了他们,那谁都逃不过坐牢的命运。成员们既要学习也要授课。玛妮雅收集了大量图书,建起了一个小小图书馆。她把这些书借给穷人,不过她要提前教会这些人认字和阅读,这样他们才能看懂书。

4
-

New ideas were spreading in England and France. Manya had a friend ten years older than herself who had got wind of them and had started a secret society called the “Winged University” to study them. Manya, Bronia and Hela joined it. The little company met at one another’s houses to be taught, not some weird or wild study, but just anatomy, biology and natural history. Yet at the sound of a knock at the door, a mouse in the wainscot, everyone started and trembled. If the police had caught them, it would have been prison for everybody. The members had to teach as well as learn. Manya collected a little library of books to lend to poor people but she had to teach them their letters and how to read before the books could be of any use to them.

5
-

有些波兰商店愿意让自己的女工下了班后聚在一起,跟着玛妮雅看书学习,开动脑筋,成长为更有作为的波兰公民。压根不用担心有人会将秘密泄露出去。小玛妮雅虽然内心欣喜,但表面上表现得很矜持,面对这群年长且粗犷的女工,她要求她们一句粗话都不能讲,一支烟都不能抽。玛妮雅觉得自己的鬈发太引人注目便索性剪了去,却没意识到剪了头发的自己更显得稚气未脱。她一天到晚忙个不停,什么都想尝试:演讲、参会、画画、写诗、读六七个国家的文学作品——毕竟,要紧紧追随伟大作家的先进思想。

5
-

Sometimes a Polish shop would be glad to let its work girls gather after work to meet Manya and sit thumbing books and racking brains in order to become more worthy citizens of Poland. No one was afraid that a single girl would give the secret away. Gay, reserved, little Manya, among the older, rougher girls refused to allow a single slang word or a single cigarette. Finding her curls too attractive, she cut them off, not noticing that by so doing she made herself look still more childish. She was full of work, trying her hand at everything: lectures, meetings, drawing, writing poetry, reading the literature of half a dozen countries—above all, following the far thoughts of great writers.

6
-

但她思索最多的还是怎样处理布朗尼娅的问题。姐姐一天天长大,至少玛妮雅是这样认为的,如果她不上心根本没人会关注布朗尼娅的前途。每天早上,不论是晴空万里还是刮风下雨,玛妮雅都要去做家教。有钱人让她站在寒风凛凛的走廊里等候,对他们来说玛妮雅不过是名穷家教。“斯克沃多夫斯卡小姐,真不好意思,我女儿今早要晚点上课;不过你还是要上够课时,对吧?”到了月底,课时费又经常忘了给。“真抱歉,我丈夫会两个月一起结给你。”但是玛妮雅当时真的很需要钱。她迫切需要这笔钱来买生活必需品。

6
-

But what occupied her thoughts most was what was she going to do with Bronia. Bronia was getting old, or at least so thought Manya, and no one would see to Bronia’s career if she didn’t. Morning after morning, in fair weather or foul, she went to give her paid lessons. The rich kept her waiting, to them she was just a poor teacher, in a draughty corridor. “So sorry, Miss Sklodovska, my little girl is late this morning; you’ll be able to give her her full lesson, of course?” At the end of the month her pay was forgotten. “So sorry, my husband will pay the two months together.” But Manya was needing the money then. She had been longing for it to buy a few necessary things.

7
-

布朗尼娅当时面无血色,神情沮丧。玛妮雅不得不先将自己的梦想搁置一旁,暂时放弃自己上大学追求知识的迫切愿望。她必须先为布朗尼娅谋划好出路。

7
-

Bronia was looking pale and discouraged. Manya would have to set aside her own ambitions, her desire to go to a university to satisfy her great need of knowledge. She must get Bronia off her hands first.

8
-

“布朗尼娅,我一直在心里盘算这件事,”某日,玛妮雅说道,“我也和爸爸谈过了。我已经找到了解决办法。”

8
-

“Bronia, I have been thinking it all out,” she said one day; “and I have spoken to father. I think I have found a way.”

9
-

“解决什么的办法?”

9
-

“A way to what?”

10
-

玛妮雅既谨慎又委婉地问道:“布朗尼娅,你现在攒的钱够你在巴黎生活多久?”

10
-

Manya had to be very careful and tactful. “Bronia, how long, could you live in Paris on what you’ve saved?”

11
-

“够旅费和一年的生活费,不过学医要五年呢。”布朗尼娅立即回答道。

11
-

“I could pay the journey and one year’s living, but Medicine needs five years,” answered Bronia quickly.

12
-

“好吧,做家教一小时才一先令,根本实现不了咱俩的梦想。”

12
-

“Yes, and lessons at a shilling an hour won’t take us far.”

13
-

“那?”

13
-

“Well?”

14
-

“这样,如果咱俩分头为自己攒钱,谁都成功不了。不过要是按我的计划来,你今年秋天就能坐上前往巴黎的火车。”

14
-

“Well, if each of us is working for herself, neither of us will succeed. Whilst with my plan you can take your train this autumn.”

15
-

“玛妮雅!你不是痴人说梦吧!”

15
-

“Manya! You’re mad!”

16
-

“当然不是。开始你先花自己的钱,然后我会给你寄钱。爸爸也会寄钱给你。同时,我也会给自己攒点钱。等以后你成了医生,就该轮到我去上学,到那时你再帮助我。”

16
-

“No. At first you can spend your own money and afterwards I will send you some. So will father. I can save for myself at the same time. And when you are a doctor, it will be my turn to go and you can help me.”

17
-

布朗尼娅的眼泪在眼眶里打转,她知道这个提议对玛妮雅意味着什么,不过她也觉得这个“如意算盘”并不好实现。“你怎么能又养活自己,又接济我,并同时给自己存钱呢?”布朗尼娅问道。

17
-

There were tears in Bronia’s eyes for she understood what the offer meant to Manya but she thought the arithmetic a little odd. “How are you going to keep yourself, to help me and to save all at the same time?” she asked.

18
-

“嗨!我一直也在想办法。我想找一个寄宿家教的差事,这样生活就不太用自己花钱了!这个想法是不是很完美?”

18
-

“Ah! That’s the way I am finding. I am going to get a resident post where I shall be kept by someone else and have no chance to spend anything! Isn’t that perfect?”

19
-

“不行,”布朗尼娅说,“我觉得没理由让我先上学。你比我聪明。如果你先上学,很快就能成功,之后我再去。”

19
-

“No,” said Bronia, “I don’t see why I should go first. You are cleverer. If you go first, you will succeed quickly and afterwards I can go.”

20
-

“这怎么行?我的傻姐姐,布朗尼娅!你不是已经二十岁,而我才十七岁吗?你已经等待了太久,而我还有时间。年长的先去。等你在诊所谋得了差事,我就能跟着沾光啦!而且我已经下定决心了,就这样决定吧!”

20
-

“Why? Oh foolish Bronia, dear! Aren’t you twenty and I only seventeen? You have been waiting centuries. I have time. The eldest must go first. When you have a practice, you can shower gold on me! Besides I have set my heart on it, so there!”

21
-

于是九月份,就在她十八岁生日前的一个月,玛妮雅坐在了家庭女教师咨询机构的接待室里,按照自己想象中女教师的样子搭配了穿着。她新长长的头发服帖地顺在褪了色的帽子下面;她的裙子平整朴素;她心平气和、安静如常。

21
-

So in September, just a month before her eighteenth birthday, Manya found herself in the waiting room of the Governesses’ agency, dressed as she was sure a governess should be dressed. Her hair which had grown again was neatly done under her faded hat; her dress was plain and severe; everything about her was ordinary and quiet.

22
-

她紧张地走向坐在办公桌后的女士,手里紧紧地握着自己的毕业证和推荐信。那位女士仔仔细细地看着推荐信,突然抬起头看着玛妮雅,甚至是盯着玛妮雅。“你真的会德语、俄语、法语、波兰语和英语吗?”她疑惑地问道。

22
-

Nervously she approached the lady at the desk, holding her certificate and testimonials very tight. The lady read the testimonials very attentively and then suddenly looked at Manya; she even stared at her. “You really mean that you know German, Russian, French, Polish and English perfectly?” she questioned.

23
-

“是的,”玛妮雅回答道,“虽然英语没有其他语言讲得好,但是授课也能达到考试水平。我高中获得了金质奖章。”

23
-

“Yes” said Manya, “though my English is not so good as the others. Still, I can teach it up to examination standard. I won the High School gold medal.”

24
-

“哦。那你期望的薪水是多少?”

24
-

“Ah! And what salary do you want?”

25
-

“寄宿家教,一年四十镑。”

25
-

“Forty pounds a year resident.”

26
-

“如果有合适的职位,我会联系你的。”带着这个听上去没什么希望的承诺,玛妮雅离开了咨询机构。

26
-

“I will let you know if a post offers.” With that not-tooencouraging promise, Manya left the agency.

27
-

不过没多久,玛妮雅就成了一名家庭女教师。那家人的姓名保密,因为他们可不想回忆起命运之神的捉弄。这家人为年仅十八岁的玛妮雅·斯克沃多夫斯卡开了一扇小门,玛妮雅后来告诉我们,如果当时穿过这扇门便可以隐隐预见日后悲惨的生活,她肯定不会进去。生活注定要让玛妮雅成为一位将天赋发挥到极致的英才,而不是郁郁寡欢、遭人白眼的小奴隶。这户B姓人家家境富裕,他们时刻提醒家庭教师自己的身份地位,对玛妮雅讲话更是冷若冰霜,唯恐暴露出自己内心的想法。他们在众人面前广施财富,却克扣了玛妮雅六个月的工资,又不让她在晚上读书,以免浪费灯油。他们人前讲话浓情蜜意,而一转脸背过身去便诽谤中伤,玛妮雅说这家人可是把朋友们也批驳得一无是处、体无完肤。

27
-

It was not long before Manya found herself a private governess. The family’s name is secret, because they would not like to remember the trick fate played them. They opened a little door for Manya Slodovska, aged eighteen, and through it, as she tells us, she caught a little glimpse of hell and she wouldn’t go through. Life meant Manya to be a great giver of gifts, not an unhappy, little despised slave. They were rich, the B—s; they kept the governess in her place, speaking to her as an iceberg might speak, could it creak out its thoughts. They threw their great wealth about in public, but they kept her six months without her salary and expected her not to read in the evenings in order to save lamp oil. Their speech to people’s faces was honeysweet, but behind their backs so backbiting that Manya says they didn’t leave their friends a dry thread to cover them.

28
-

“我从他们身上学到,”玛妮雅写道,“现实世界中还真有书本里说的那种人,不与利欲熏心的人为伍才是明智之举。”也许就是在十八岁的年纪懂得的道理,让玛妮雅·斯克沃多夫斯卡在日后面对任何财富的诱惑都能保持初心、不为所动!

28
-

“I have learnt from them,” she wrote, “that people in books are true and that one is wise not to mix with those whom wealth has spoilt.” Perhaps it was such knowledge, won when she was eighteen, that made Manya Sklodovska in the far future unspoilable by any offer of great wealth!

29
-

然而,玛妮雅的计划并没有奏效。住在镇上的B姓人家里,她发现自己每天都会产生一点儿花费。时不时能见到父亲,能与双翼学社的朋友们保持联系都很让人高兴,但一旦决定执行计划就必须坚持下去,无论付出什么代价。玛妮雅觉得自己必须彻底离开家,在偏远的乡下找份工作,这样就几乎不会有什么其他花费了。只有这样,已经远在巴黎的布朗尼娅才能达成自己的心愿。

29
-

But Manya’s plan was not working. Living at the B—s in town, she found that she spent a little money every day. It was very pleasant to be able to see her father sometimes and to be able to keep up with her friends of the winged university, but when you have made up your mind to a plan, you must carry it out whatever the cost. Manya found that she must leave home entirely, must get a post in the depth of the country, where she would be able to spend nothing. In that way, Bronia, who was already in Paris, would be able to have what she had planned for her.

30
-

玛妮雅苦苦寻找的职位终于出现了。远在乡下,而且薪水更高一点——一年五十镑。当然,那个时代的五十镑可比现在值钱多了。然而,玛妮雅还是怀着沮丧的心情给了父亲自己的新地址,不过对父亲来说新地址听上去并没有那么偏远和奇怪。

30
-

The very post she was seeking turned up. It was far away in the country and it was a little better paid—fifty pounds a year this time. And, of course, fifty pounds went farther in those days than now. But it was with rather a sinking heart that Manya showed her new address to her father, though probably it did not look as outlandish and far away to him as it does to us.

31
-

玛妮雅·斯克沃多夫斯卡

31
-

Melle Marya Sklodovska

32
-

Z先生——

32
-

c/o Monsieur Z—

33
-

斯图集村

33
-

SZCZUKI,

34
-

近普扎斯内什市

34
-

near PRZASNYSZ

35
-

一月份,玛妮雅动身前往乡下,一月份的波兰已是一连积了好几个月的雪。当火车缓缓驶出车站,玛妮雅再也看不到向自己挥手的父亲了。这也是她人生中第一次独自一人,第一次感到迷茫害怕。遥远村庄里的那些陌生面孔很可能会像上一任雇主那样冰冷严酷,村庄偏僻更是让人逃脱不得。而父亲一天天变老,很可能会生病要人照顾。她留下父亲远赴乡下,这样做对吗?夜色渐浓,白雪覆盖的平原在夜幕下绵延至远方,但在玛妮雅的泪水中一切早已变得模糊。

35
-

It was January when Manya set out for the country, a January in Poland where the snow lay thick for months together. As the train drew slowly out of the station, she realised that she could no longer see her father waving to her. For the first time in her life she was wholly alone and frightened. Those new people in a far away village, from which there was no escape might prove to be as unkind as her last employers. Or her father, who was getting old, might be taken ill. Ought she to have left him? The long fields of snow crept by in the gathering darkness, but they had long been blotted out by Manya’s tears.

36
-

坐了三个小时的火车后,玛妮雅还要再搭乘雪橇。她浑身裹着暖融融的毛毯,在漫天白雪的冬夜里一路前行,四周寂静,唯有雪橇铃叮当作响。

36
-

Three hours in the train and then a sledge to meet her. Warm fur rugs were tucked around her and out into the snowy majesty of the winter night she speeded through a silence broken only by the noise of sleigh bells.

37
-

雪橇足足跑了四个小时。玛妮雅饥寒交迫,想着马儿到底什么时候才能把她送到。随后她看到了一小片光亮、一扇打开的门,全家人都出来迎接她——高大的屋主人、女主人,还有抓着妈妈衣裙有些害羞的孩子们,眼神里充满了好奇。女主人用热情友好的话语欢迎玛妮雅的到来,给她端来热腾腾的茶水,亲自将她领到准备好的房间,周到地留下玛妮雅一人暖和暖和身子,收拾一下随身带来的旧行李箱。

37
-

Four hours in the sleigh. Iced and hungry, Manya wondered if the horses would ever stop. Then a yawning space of light, an open door and a whole family to meet her—the tall master of the house, the mistress, the shy children clinging to their mother’s skirt, their eyes alive with curiosity. Madame welcomed her with warm, friendly words, gave her boiling tea, took her herself to her room, and left her alone to recover some warmth and to unpack her few shabby cases.

38
-

玛妮雅身处偏远乡下。她环视四周,满意地打量着房间雪白的墙壁、简洁的装饰和壁橱里的热炉子。

38
-

Manya was in the depth of the country. She looked round with satisfaction at her whitewashed, simply furnished room, with its warm stove in an alcove.

39
-

第二天早晨,她拉开窗帘,本以为会看见白茫茫的田野和白雪覆盖的森林,但眼前看到的却是工厂冒着黑烟的烟囱。她向后退了几步并再度放眼望去——有好多烟囱,看不见一棵树、一丛灌木、一个树篱。原来她来到了甜菜生产区。目光所及之处全是开垦好的准备种植甜菜的耕地。整个乡村都在种植甜菜。农民们开垦、播种、丰收。那些工厂也都是甜菜精炼厂。村里部分屋舍就是炼厂的工人们在工厂围墙边搭建的。玛妮雅住的这家男主人是炼厂厂长。村边的河流里也都漂着甜菜根。

39
-

The next morning she drew her curtains, expecting to see snowy fields and forests bending under snow. Instead she was greeted with factory chimneys belching black smoke. She drew back and looked again—not one chimney but many, and not a tree to be seen, not a bush, not a hedge. She was in the sugar beet district. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but ploughed land waiting for beetroot. The whole country was devoted to beetroot. For beetroot the peasants ploughed and sowed and harvested. The factories were beetroot refineries. The village consisted of the cottages of the beetroot workers sheltering under factory walls. The house where she lived belonged to the director of beetroot. The river flowed coloured with beetroot.

40
-

玛妮雅看到工厂有些失望。对于周围大户人家的年轻男女亦是如此。人们谈论的话题无非就是家长里短、穿衣打扮,谁家要办舞会以及上场舞会持续了多久。有次Z先生和太太跳完舞回到家都中午一点了,这让玛妮雅甚是吃惊,她可能早都忘了自己上次跳舞到清晨八点的欢乐愉悦。“赐我一支讽刺漫画家的神笔,”她说道,“可以让我把这里的某些人好好描绘描绘。女孩都是大笨蛋,连怎么开口说话都不会,唯有我的学生布兰卡,这家的大女儿,聪明理性、热爱生活,就像一颗闪闪发光的珍珠。”除了布兰卡,斯图集村另一个有趣的人便是她三岁的弟弟斯塔斯了。他可是这所大平房的活力之源。他迈着小步子啪嗒啪嗒地到处跑,走下长长的楼梯,跑到外面的玻璃阳台上,阳台上面的藤蔓叶子掉光了,略显破败。而他咿咿呀呀的话语更是逗乐了玛妮雅。一次保姆告诉他上帝无处不在。“斯塔斯不喜欢那样,”他回答道,“我担心他会抓到我!他会咬我吗?”

40
-

The factories were a disappointment to Manya. So were the young men and maidens of the big houses round. They talked of nothing but what he said and she said, of the clothes they would wear, of who was giving the next ball and of how long the last had gone on. Manya was so horrified when Mr. and Mrs. Z— came home from a dance at one o’clock in the afternoon that she seemed to have forgotten how much she had once rejoiced at dancing till eight in the morning.”Give me the pen of a caricaturist,” she exclaimed, “for some of these people are really worthy of it. The girls are geese, who don’t know how to open their mouths and so far my Bronka, the eldest daughter of the house, is a rare pearl for sense and interest in life.” Besides Bronka, there was another interesting person at Szczuki, her little brother Stas, aged three. He was the life of the long, one-storied house. His pattering feet went everywhere, down the long corridors, out into the glass verandahs that looked shabby under the leafless virginia creeper. His prattle amused Manya. Once his Nanny told him that God was everywhere. “Stas doesn’t like that,” he replied; “I’m afraid he’ll catch me! Will he bite me?”

41
-

而十岁的安迪亚是玛妮雅的问题学生,喜欢乱跑乱动,家里一来客人她就跑得不见了踪影。玛妮雅一天本该给她上四个小时的课,但她不断逃课,好不容易被抓回来还要再从头上起,使得授课并没有什么大的进展。安迪亚还喜欢赖床,玛妮雅每天必须拽着她的胳膊把她拖下床,每次这个过程都让玛妮雅气不打一处来。某天早上,玛妮雅花了两个小时才渐渐平息怒火、恢复平静。 玛妮雅一天最快乐的时光便是和布兰卡一起读书的三小时,以及业余能写信回家的休闲时光。“复活节的时候,我就回到华沙啦,”她写道,“每每想起这件事,我的心就明朗起来,控制着自己不再像野人一般大喊大叫。”

41
-

Andzia, Manya’s special pupil, was ten and a Fidgetty Phyllis, who ran away from her lessons whenever a visitor called. Manya was supposed to teach her for four hours a day, but what with her perpetual running away and being caught and brought back and having to go back to the beginning again, work did not get on, as one might say, fast. Andzia, too, was apt to lie in bed till Manya pulled her out by the arm, a proceeding that aggravated Manya particularly. On one of those mornings, it took her two hours to re-cover her temper. The best part of her day were the three hours in which she read with Bronka and those other hours of leisure when she wrote long letters home: “I am coming to Warsaw at Easter,” she said; “and at that thought everything in me rejoices so much that it is all I can do not to shout like a savage.”

42
-

走在泥泞的村庄小道,玛妮雅看见了村里脏兮兮的男孩女孩。乱蓬蓬的头发下,他们明亮的眼睛上下打量着她。“这不也是波兰人吗?”她自顾自地说道,“我发誓要教书育人,难道不该为这些孩子做些什么吗?” 这些穿着破烂的孩子要么一无所知,要么只知道俄国字母表。玛妮雅想,给这些孩子秘密开设一间波兰学校将是件值得做的事情。

42
-

Along the muddy village lanes, she met the village children, dirty little boys and girls, their bright eyes looking out at her from under their matted tow-like hair. “Aren’t these Poles?” she said to herself. “I, who have vowed to enlighten the people, can I not do something for them?” Those ragamuffins either had never learnt anything or only knew the Russian alphabet. Manya thought that it would be fun to start a secret Polish school for them.

43
-

布兰卡听到这个想法后为之一振。“别高兴得太早,”玛妮雅说,“如果我们被抓住了,等待我们的那可是西伯利亚,你知道的。”两个人都知道西伯利亚的寓意——流亡在万里冰川的恶劣平原。但布兰卡甘愿冒此风险。两个人征得了Z先生的同意——正式开课了。

43
-

Bronka was delighted when she heard of the idea. “Not so fast,” said Manya. “If we are caught, it will be Siberia for us, you know.” They both knew what Siberia meant—exile in a terrible land of frozen plains. But Bronka was ready to take the risk. The two girls obtained the permission of Mr. Z— and the class began.

44
-

幸运的是,有一条户外楼梯直通玛妮雅的房间。十到十八个脏兮兮的小孩子爬着楼梯来上课。玛妮雅借来一些桌椅板凳,又花了原本就弥足珍贵的不多的积蓄给孩子们买了练习本和钢笔。欢乐也随即而来。笨拙的小手们握着不熟悉的钢笔,在雪白的纸上歪歪扭扭地画着字母。慢慢地,这些小顽童们就意识到原来自己听到的话语都可以在白纸上用黑字表达出来。孩子们的父母并不识字,因而为此颇感骄傲,纷纷走上木楼梯,在教室后面兴奋地看着孩子们的“伟大举动”。但其实孩子们学写字并不那么轻松容易。他们表情纠结、眉头紧皱、嘟嘟囔囔,就好像写字跟把甜菜根搬上山一样艰难。玛妮雅和布兰卡围着孩子们转,帮助他们写字。这些学生们脏兮兮的,经常走神,并不十分聪明,但大多时候,他们明亮的大眼睛里闪现着对上课的兴奋和对知识的渴求。

44
-

Fortunately, there was an outside staircase to Manya’s room. Ten or eighteen small, grubby boys and girls began to tramp up it. Manya borrowed a deal table and some benches and spent some of her valuable savings on buying exercise books and pens for her pupils. Then the fun began. Clumsy fingers grasped the unaccustomed instruments and letters were scrawled on white paper. Slowly the mysterious fact that you can write the sounds you hear in black on white began to dawn on the urchins. The proud parents, who could not themselves read, came up the wooden stairs and stood overwhelmed and delighted at the back of the room watching the marvellous thing a son or a daughter was doing. The sons and daughters were not doing it easily. They twisted, they sniffed, they groaned as if making a letter was as hard as carrying beetroots up a mountain. Manya and Bronka moved among them, helping them in their painful trying. They were smelly, they were often inattentive, they weren’t very clever, but for the most part, their bright eyes showed that they were excited about their lessons and longing to learn.

序号 英文/音标 中文解释 更多操作

twitch

[twɪtʃ]

v.急拉;抽动;痉挛;抽搐

merry

[’meri]

adj.愉快的;欢乐的;微醉的

rend

[rend]

v.撕破;分裂;劈开;强夺

eagerness

[’iːgənɪs]

n.渴望;热心

meticulous

[mə’tɪkjələs]

adj.一丝不苟的;缜密的

exquisite

[ɪk’skwɪzɪt]

adj.精挑细选的;精致的;细腻的;强烈的

excursion

[ɪk’skɜːʃn]

n.远足;短途旅行;【物】偏移,漂移,偏离;偏差,偏振

mock

[mɒk]

v.嘲弄;嘲笑;模仿

pamphlet

[’pæmflət]

n.小册子

verse

[vɜːs]

n.诗;韵文;诗节

David

[’deɪvɪd]

戴维(男子名)

azalea

[ə’zeɪliə]

n.杜鹃花

dye

[daɪ]

n.染料;染色

shill

[ʃɪl]

n.托儿;雇佣骗子

Warsaw

[ˈwɔːsɔː]

n.华沙(波兰首都)

wainscot

[’weɪnskət]

n. 护壁板; 下壁板; 进口的高级橡木

rack

[ræk]

①饲料架,(牲畜)槽;

slang

[slæŋ]

n.俚语;行话

curl

[kɜːl]

n.卷曲;卷发;年轮;漩涡;【足】曲线球

childish

[’tʃaɪldɪʃ]

adj.孩子气的;幼稚的

draughty

[’drɑːfti]

adj.通风良好的.

Paris

[’pærɪs]

n.巴黎;重楼(百合科植物);帕里斯(姓氏)

autumn

[’ɔːtəm]

n.秋季

arithmetic

[ə’rɪθmətɪk]

n.算术

governess

[’ɡʌvənəs]

n.女家庭教师

testimonial

[ˌtestɪ’məʊniəl]

n.证明书;推荐书;奖品;感谢信

attentive

[ə’tentɪv]

adj.注意的;留意的

despise

[dɪ’spaɪz]

vt.轻视

outlandish

[aʊt’lændɪʃ]

adj.奇异的;异国风格的

Monsieur

[mə’sjɜː]

n.(法语)先生

wholly

[’həʊlli]

adv.完全地;全部地;一概

unkind

[ˌʌn’kaɪnd]

adj.不和善的;无情的;不厚道的

creep

[kriːp]

vi.蹑手蹑脚地走;爬

blot

[blɒt]

n. (墨水的)污点;墨迹;

tuck

[tʌk]

v.打摺;卷起;收拢;藏起;大吃

mistress

[’mɪstrəs]

n.主妇;女主人;情妇

Madame

[’mædəm]

n.夫人

whitewash

[’waɪtwɒʃ]

n.白色涂料;粉饰;惨败

belch

[beltʃ]

v.打嗝;喷出

beet

[biːt]

n.甜菜根;甜菜

plow

[plau]

n.犁;耕地

maiden

[’meɪdn]

n.未婚女子;少女;断头机;从未赢过的赛马

horrifyingly

[’hɒrɪfaɪ]

v.使恐惧;使惊骇;使反感

rejoice

[rɪ’dʒɔɪs]

v.(使)高兴;(使)欢喜

pearl

[pɜːl]

n.珍珠

patter

[’pætə(r)]

n.急速拍打声;轻快脚步声;行话;顺口溜

perpetual

[pə’petʃuəl]

adj.永久的;永恒的;一再往复的

aggravate

[’æɡrəveɪt]

vt.恶化;严重

leisure

[’leʒə(r)]

n.闲暇;休闲

muddy

[’mʌdi]

adj.泥泞的;浑浊的;糊涂的

mat

[mæt]

n.垫子;席子

vow

[vaʊ]

n.誓约

exile

[’eksaɪl]

n.放逐;流放;被放逐者

fortunate

[’fɔːtʃənət]

adj.幸运的;侥幸的;带来幸运的

staircase

[’steəkeɪs]

n.楼梯

tramp

[træmp]

n.徒步;流浪汉;淫妇;重脚步声

Clumsy

[’klʌmzi]

adj.笨拙的;不得体的;笨重的

urchin

[’ɜːtʃɪn]

n.顽童;【动】海胆;刺猬

sniff

[snɪf]

vi. 用鼻子吸气;

groan

[ɡrəʊn]

v.呻吟;抱怨;发嘎吱声;受重压

excite

[ɪk’saɪt]

vt.使兴奋;使激动;刺激;激起

grubby

[’ɡrʌbi]

adj.生蛆的;肮脏的;污秽的;卑鄙的

unaccustomed

[ˌʌnə’kʌstəmd]

adj.异乎惯例的;不习惯的

scrawly

[skrɔːl]

v.乱涂;潦草地写

smelly

[’smeli]

adj.难闻的;臭的

inattentive

[ˌɪnə’tentɪv]

adj.心不在焉的;怠慢的;疏忽的

简典